The morning broke not with peace, but with steel.
Where others heard the gentle hymn of sparrows, I woke to the clash of swords cutting through dawn. The scent of iron lingered in the air like the residue of battle.
Kiyo and Lancaster had been locked in combat since before the sun had risen, their bodies drenched in sweat, their movements merciless. Each strike was not training — it was survival rehearsed. Sparks erupted as steel kissed steel.
Sayo and I approached, but neither combatant spared us a glance. Kiyo's blade arced with his technique, Moon Slash, the crescent gleam of death. Lancaster met it with Last Bastion, a fortress of defiance carved from his will. When their strikes were about to collapse the world between them, Rika's voice ripped through the chaos.
"Enough!"
Her Sanctum Ward swallowed the battlefield, suspending the duel in a prison of light. The air thickened with her fury as she turned on them.
"Have you lost all reason? Fighting as though war has already come — at the break of dawn?"
Kiyo's gaze, cold and unwavering, pierced through her rebuke. His voice carried weight, not defiance but truth.
"I fight to be stronger… to protect—"
Before the words could fully escape, Sayo's staff cracked against him, silencing her brother with brutal efficiency. Kiyo snarled awake, rage igniting in his eyes.
"Sayo! Have you gone mad?!"
She didn't answer. With an incantation whispered like a curse, she bound him in her spell, Dreambind, dragging him into the merciful grasp of forced sleep. Lancaster lifted him without question, carrying Kiyo's body with a soldier's quiet obedience. The siblings' war was over, for now, but its shadow would remain.
Rika's anger simmered into silence. Her eyes turned toward the tree where Shiro perched, watching.
"You saw everything," she accused. "Why did you not stop them?"
Shiro descended, his steps deliberate, his smile veiled with calculation.
"Why intervene?" he countered, voice smooth and venomous. "Conflict reveals truth. I wanted to measure their hunger… the balance of power in this class."
But as he spoke, his gaze lingered not only on the duelists but on the treeline beyond, where for the briefest moment, faint silhouettes shifted — cloaked figures, watchers unseen by the others. At his subtle hand motion, they vanished like smoke dissolving into the dawn.
Rika caught none of it, but Shiro's smirk deepened. Every clash tells me more than they realize, he thought. And soon, the knowledge will be mine alone to wield.
"Always scheming," Rika muttered, dismissing him. "Your thoughts twist toward ruin. I won't indulge them."
Shiro's smile lingered as he murmured, "And yet you are late to Rena's training — do you think she will spare you her cruelty?"
Rika did not answer. She ran.
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She arrived late. The world should have collapsed on her shoulders — but Rena greeted her not with wrath, but with a smile too sharp to trust.
"You're late."
Rika's apology poured out, but Rena silenced it with a hand. "Words weigh less than steel. Show me if you've grown."
The duel began. Spells erupted, earth and fire crashing, air and light colliding with brutal intent. But where Rika's resolve sought to surprise, Rena's experience smothered her. When Rika lunged with a dagger hidden behind her staff, Rena's blade whispered through the air and cut the illusion of victory apart.
In a breath, Rika was broken. Held in Rena's chokehold, darkness devoured her consciousness.
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Rika awoke in chambers lit by the pale glow of candles. Her body trembled — not from pain, but from shame.
"You lost," Rena said simply. Yet her tone carried weight. "And still, you dared. That, I commend."
But Rika's heart split open. Tears, fierce and bitter, carved paths down her cheeks.
"You don't understand. Yuta…" Her voice broke. "I couldn't save him. You used him. You sacrificed him like an offering to fear. You made him nothing but a warning — and I was powerless. Powerless to stop it!"
She seized Rena by the collar, her body shaking with fury.
"I hate you. I hate you!" Her voice fractured into sobs. "And still—I cannot even touch you. How pathetic… how pathetic my resolve truly is."
Rena did not move. She only pulled Rika close, her voice steady, unyielding.
"It tore me apart to cast Yuta into that abyss. Do not think I felt nothing. But strength demands sacrifice. And anger without control is a blade turned inward."
Her grip tightened.
"Hate me if you must. But never hate the ones you swore to protect. Bear that burden. Endure it. And one day, your strength will not only reach them — it will save them."
Rika collapsed, broken yet sharpened.
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Hours later, as she left the chamber, Rena's voice followed her, low, measured, and haunting.
"Tell me…" she whispered to the dark, where six unseen figures listened, "…what forges strength more swiftly? The burden of power unused… or the agony of watching helplessly as everything you love is taken?"
The shadows offered no answer. But in their silence, the question rooted itself deep, binding fate tighter around the class.